In the age of digital information, both individuals and enterprises have come to rely on computing systems and the data they store in almost every aspect of life. Often, the data itself is much more valuable than the underlying hardware that stores the data. Thus, many enterprises and individuals take precautions to protect their data.
One way of protecting data is to backup data. A backup computing system may store a copy of the data as it existed at a previous instant in time. The backup copy of the data may be periodically updated. More frequent updates tend to increase the freshness of the data at the backup computing system.
At some point, the data at the primary computing system may become inaccessible or otherwise lost. For example, the data may become corrupted due to a system failure or viral infiltration. Software (such as the operating system, application, or drivers) needed to access the data may also be corrupted. Furthermore, hardware needed to access the data may become damaged. After a system failure, data may be restored by replacing any damaged hardware and then copying data from the backup computing system to the primary computing system.
Typically, software is backed up using a data protection application. Data protection applications may not be optimized to backup data controlled or stored by an application cluster. For example, a data protection application may inadvertently backup multiple copies of the same data when backing up data associated with the application cluster. A data protection application may also fail to take advantage of various features of an application cluster.